DES MOINES — Paul Ryan’s first solo campaign trip since joining the Republican presidential ticket was a little like baptism by fire, as he was heckled at the state fair’s legendary soapbox.

There was no easing into things with a tightly controlled campaign event like the ones typically held by Mitt Romney. Instead, Ryan was dispatched to the Des Moines Register’s soapbox here at the Iowa State Fair, a site where heckling is almost always expected, and where Romney himself last year had a terse exchange with an attendee over Medicare and Social Security, and made the infamous claim that “corporations are people.”

Within minutes of Ryan kicking off his remarks, a small but persistent group of protesters began to yell over him, at times drowning out his remarks. A few women took it a step further and attempted to rush the stage, climbing over reporters crouched in front of the stage to observe Ryan’s remarks.

Ryan, who wore a red-checkered shirt, jeans and cowboy boots, had just begun to address President Barack Obama — who was also campaigning in Iowa — when the shouts began.

“You know, I heard that President Obama is starting his bus tour today, and I heard he wasn’t going to come to the Iowa State Fair,” Ryan said as several protesters began to yell over him.

“You know what? It’s funny. It’s funny because Iowans and Wisconsinites, we like to be respectful of one another and peaceful with one another and listen to one another. These ladies must not be from Iowa and Wisconsin,” Ryan said.

Reporters observed two women — one carrying a cloth banner — attempt to charge toward Ryan and make their way onto the stage. They were taken out of the area by state police, as one of the women was visibly kicking and screaming.

“She just punched one of our volunteers,” a campaign staffer said to a local law-enforcement officer, referring to one of the protesters, as the women were detained. “Go, go, go get her,” the staffer then said.

Ryan managed to stay on message despite the chaos, barely missing a beat.

“Hey, like I said. She must not be from Iowa,” Ryan said, before getting back to his stump speech.

“My guess … is, the reason President Obama isn’t making it here from Council Bluffs is because he only knows left turns,” Ryan said, drawing a few chuckles from the crowd. “You know, but as you see the president come through on his bus tour, you might ask him the same question that I’m getting asked by people all around America, and that is: ‘Where are the jobs, Mr. President?’”

Hecklers continued to shout fervently during Ryan’s remarks, and a man screaming in the middle of the crowd was escorted out by Iowa State Patrol officers.

While the speech was disrupted several times, Ryan didn’t miss any opportunities to launch attacks on President Barack Obama, saying flatly that the president had made America’s economy worse.

“We ought to stop spending money we don’t have. President Obama has given us four years of trillion-dollar plus deficits. He’s making matters worse and he’s spending our children into a diminished future,” Ryan told the crowd.

He also picked up Romney’s claims that Obama and his administration are hostile to and removed form business owners.

“One of the great things about Mitt Romney is that this is a man who actually knows how to create jobs. This is a man in his life who has created jobs started small business, turned around failing businesses. That’s the kind of leadership and experience we want to have in the White House. This is a man who has real-life experiences, who knows that if you have a small business you did build that small business.”

Before he took the stage, Ryan took a turn around the fairgrounds, accompanied by leading Iowa Republicans, including Iowa Gov. Terry Branstad, Lt. Gov. Kim Reynolds, U.S. Sen Chuck Grassley and Rep. Steve King. Ryan had an arm draped around Grassley’s shoulder as the two men walked, and King chatted briefly with reporters surrounding the group.

“Wisconsin values and Iowa values mesh pretty well together,” King told a reporter. “One of the things I say about Paul is he’s a blue-collar guy.”

Unlike Romney’s trip to the soapbox one year ago, Ryan — who spoke for less than fifteen minutes — didn’t take questions from attendees. The Wisconsin lawmaker now goes to Colorado for a fundraiser and event, and will be in Nevada, Ohio and Florida later this week for other public stops.

After Ryan left the stage, the Obama campaign fired back with a statement ridiculing Romney’s famous gaffe in the same place.

“On the very same stage where Mitt Romney declared that ‘corporations are people,’ Congressman Ryan today tried to pay lip service to helping the middle class. But here’s the real Romney-Ryan plan for the middle class: thousands of dollars in tax increases for middle class families with kids, to pay for tax cuts for millionaires and billionaires,” Obama campaign spokesman Danny Kanner said in a statement emailed to reporters.

During a speech in Council Bluffs, Ryan didn’t respond to shouted questions from reporters about the president’s accusation that Ryan and the Republican House members were obstructing passage of the farm bill and blocking aid to drought-stricken areas of the country.

But a campaign official fired back, suggesting the problem is in Obama’s own party.

“Congressman Ryan voted for the House-passed drought relief bill two weeks ago,” the campaign official said. “If the president wants to make progress on this topic, he needs to talk to Senator Harry Reid, D-Nevada.”

While Ryan exchanged pleasantries with a handful of supporters who lined the sidewalks at the fairgrounds and even apologized once or twice for the crush of reporters following him, he did not eat one of the local delicacies: deep-fried butter on a stick — at least not in front of reporters.